News Photo by Jonny Zawacki Hillman’s Brooke Jones (22) attempts to shoot a ball over Posen defender Cami LaTulip during the fourth quarter of a girls basketball game on Monday at Posen High School.

POSEN–For the second time this season, the Hillman girls basketball team got the better of its rival Posen, defeating the Vikings on their home court, 64-37, on Monday at Posen High School.

The Tigers took advantage of Posen’s lack of experience, sweeping the regular season series against the Vikings for the first time in nine years and opening the new year with an impressive victory.

“I thought it was a good win tonight and I’m proud of my team,” Hillman coach John Kuzewski said. “Posen is our biggest rival and to sweep them in the regular season really says a lot and I’m proud of my team.”

Posen did all it could early on to keep the game close by playing keep away and finding some open looks, but as the first quarter went on, the Vikings had a difficult time beating Hillman’s full court press and Posen committed costly turnovers and missed many easy looks from underneath the basket as the Tigers used its athleticism and experience to continue building a huge lead.

“I hate to keep saying it, but we are an extremely young team. We’re starting an eighth grader and freshman against a very good Hillman team and it isn’t going to end up going your way too often,” Posen coach Karl Momrik said. “We saw some things that we liked tonight, but we also have some things we need to work on. We can’t miss bunnies against a very good team and we can’t win games scoring in the 30s.”

The Vikings missed several easy looks early in the game and Hillman moved the ball well all night, creating open shots and displaying some terrific shooting from all over the court as the Tigers held a 30-14 lead at the half.

Hillman continued to build on the lead for the remainder of the game as it put together a good third quarter at both ends of the court to take a 29-point lead into the final quarter to cruise to another big win over its North Star League rival.

“We work on shooting a lot in practice and I stress to my team to make the extra pass and tonight for the most part we made those extra passes and instead of getting a good shot, a lot of the night we took a couple of great shots,” Kuzewski said.

The Tigers had three players score double-digits on the night were led by Vanessa Schook who poured in a game-high 21 points. Schook is just 14 points away from 1,000 career points and she will look to reach that milestone during the Tigers next game against Mio on Friday.

“She had a nice night tonight and she is very close to well deserved milestone and hopefully she will be able to get that in our next game and then we can continue moving forward,” Kuzewski said.

Morgan Armon displayed some sharpshooting all night and scored 14 points and Lyndsey Ryba added 13 points.

Posen was led by Cami LaTulip who scored 14 points. Brooke Ciarkowski added 10 points and Anissa Eagling, Faith E. Romel and Riley Krajniak all chipped in with four points apiece in the losing effort.

The Vikings fall to 1-5 on the year and will be back in action on Friday when they host Atlanta. Hillman improves to 4-1 and will look to make it five in a row on Friday against the Thunderbolts.

The Tigers’ JV team was also victorious, defeating Posen’s JV team by a score of 39-17. Alison Samp and MaKenna Grulke led the way scoring eight points apiece and MacKenzie VanPamel added five points.

The Hillman JV team will also be in action on Friday as it hosts Mio.

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HILLMAN (64) — O. Smith, 2 3-5 7; L. Ryba, 5 1-3 13; V. Schook, 8 2-2 21; M. Armon, 5 2-2 14; K. Kenyon, 1 0-0 2; J. Appelgren, 0 1-2 1.

POSEN (37) — F. E Romel, 2 0-4 4; R. Krajniak, 2 0-0 4; A. Eagling, 1 2-3 4; C. LaTulip, 6 2-2 14; B. Ciarkowski, 2 4-8 10; M. Menzel, 0 1-4 1.